


Through Your Touch

by LokasennaHiddleston



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bucky Barnes Feels, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Civil War Team Iron Man, Fix-It, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Tony Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 05:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10210166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokasennaHiddleston/pseuds/LokasennaHiddleston
Summary: In a world where soulmates know each other when they first touch, Tony Stark meets his when the man in question is brainwashed, on a rampage and trying to kill him. Historically, not awesome - but perhaps not all that surprising. Meanwhile, Bucky Barnes doesn't remember meeting his soulmate at all. He just knows it's wrong to let Tony Stark get hurt. They meet somewhere in the middle - and it changes everything.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Through Your Touch - 你的触碰](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10575213) by [LokasennaHiddleston](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokasennaHiddleston/pseuds/LokasennaHiddleston), [Uryan_Karl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uryan_Karl/pseuds/Uryan_Karl)



> Happy birthday, Bucky Barnes! Originally, I planned to update 5 times, but I'm still working on that chapter - so here, have a soulmate AU instead.

 

Contrary to popular belief, Tony Stark did, in fact, want a soulmate. In his youth, he'd always claimed that he didn't believe in such things, that people made their own choices and the idea of soul-mates was obsolete. It had probably contributed to him being viewed as the Merchant of Death—but that was what Howard always said, at least, and it had made sense to Tony.

In theory, dreaming of a soul mate was romantic and sweet. In practice, it was idiotic. The chances of someone finding their soul mate these days were slim to none, especially since there was no way of knowing you even had one. Sometimes, there was no perfect match—and that was just the way it was meant to be. People were too different, and their lives, their experience changed them. To believe that one person could be the perfect match of another all throughout their existence was naive at best.

Case in point: Tony. Tony had been a very different man in his pre-Afghanistan days. If he'd had a soulmate then, he supposed it would have been someone as callous and arrogant as he'd been. Today, things had changed. Apparently, for a genius, Tony was very dumb and had needed a wake up call as massive as open heart surgery in a cave to get his head out of his ass.

Whatever the case, one fact remained as true to this day as it had been then. He wanted a soulmate. As idiotic and naive as it might have been, the idea appealed to Tony. How could it not? He'd never had a friend he hadn't built or paid or somehow compensated. People couldn't be bothered to be in his presence if he didn't bribe them somehow—with his money, or his tech, or his body. A soulmate would be above that. Or so he thought. Ideally.

Tony Stark first met his soulmate long after he'd given up on the idea of ever finding him or her. In fact, by then, he'd pretty much made his peace with the fact that he'd be alone for the rest of his life, since even Pepper—sweet, wonderful Pepper—had left him.

Suffice to say, he was very surprised that the life-altering moment—the proverbial "being struck by lightning" cliche instant—came at a time when he was genuinely considering he might not survive this particular confrontation.

It went like this. Since Ultron, Tony had pretty much retreated from the team. He had the suit on standby, but he was officially a non-combatant on reserve.

This meant that when Steve's old BFF went on a rampage, all Tony had on him was the watch embued with sonic waves.

It was experimental tech, and for the most part, he had hoped he wouldn't have to use it. It was also nowhere near enough to face off with the Winter Soldier.

He did it anyway.

Fighting the Winter Soldier in his very breakable, non-suited state was beyond reckless. It was worse than the time with Loki, since there was no way to distract the Winter Soldier with smartass comments, and even if there had been, the delay wouldn't conveniently provide him with a suit sent by his beautiful (and now dead) JARVIS. But he couldn't just wait around and twiddle his thumbs while the Winter Soldier killed people. Fuck that.

In or out of the armor, he was still Iron Man.

The sonic wave distracted the Winter Soldier from his original target. Great. That was just great. Except now the Soldier's full attention was on Tony. It all happened so fast. They exchanged blows, and Tony even managed to block a bullet with his glove. And at one point, Tony's hand touched the Soldier's flesh hand.

The Soldier faltered, ever so slightly. Their eyes met. Tony couldn't tell if there was recognition in the Soldier's gaze—there seemed to be brief spark, but Tony could just as easily be imagining it. Either way, for that one moment, they just looked at each other, and the Soldier made no attempt to attack Tony again, although he definitely could have, and there was very little Tony could have done.

Natasha's arrival shattered the moment, and her timing was impecably horrible. The Soldier heard her coming and whatever had awoken inside him—there had been something there, Tony decided—disappeared. He shoved Tony away, engaging Natasha in battle.

Obviously, not even she could hold him back—and Tony just stayed down. His arm felt numb and his heart hurt, as if there was still shrapnel in his chest trying to kill him.

And then, Cap swept in, and before Tony could do much of anything, he and his bestie were gone. And Tony found himself in the horrible position of having to promise Ross to chase down Steve and Barnes—since the alternative would've been the authorities going after the rogue super-humans themselves.

It was the only thing he could do. It was the last chance to perhaps fix things. If only he could get Steve to listen... There might still be a way out of this.

Tony might be able to find some way, some way to...

To what? Tony didn't even know anymore. Things had been difficult enough when all he'd had to face was Steve's bullheadedness, but now, he had this whole soulmate shitfest to deal with too.

Barnes had been brainwashed. Tony had read the reports—and he'd seen it, in Barnes's dead eyes, before they'd touched. But Hydra was gone. Barnes had presumably shaken off the reins of his programming to save Steve's life. What did that mean? Tony had no idea.

There were laws that protected soul mates. Soul mates couldn't lie to one another. Maybe under different circumstances, Tony could have used that—but Tony suspected this was not one of those cases when the truth could set you free.

Not to mention that the Wakandan king T'Challa was still after Barnes's ass. He'd proven to be very resourceful before, and predictably, he attached himself to Tony and his group.

Tony would have told T'Challa Barnes was his soulmate if he'd thought it would help, but he very much doubted T'Challa was in any state to listen to reason. It was, in the end, the final push that urged him to seek out Peter Parker.

Parker was young, so very young, and Tony hated to involve him into something like this. But he'd faced armed criminals on his own equipped with nothing but some homemade pajamas and the crude, if ingenious, web-shooters. He'd do well.

"Listen, kid. What I'm trying to do here is to end this fight without anyone getting killed or maimed. So be careful. Keep your distance and web'em. And if there's anyone on our side who slips up, you do the same, okay?"

Parker was clever, and he filled in the dots with ease. "You mean King T'Challa, don't you?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah. I don't want Barnes dead. There has to be another way out of this that doesn't involve bloodshed."

"I understand, Mr. Stark," Parker said, his eyes glinting with far more maturity than his young age would have warranted. He'd seen too much loss, Tony knew. "I won't let you down."

Tony squeezed Parker's shoulder. "Excellent. Now come on. You need an upgrade because that thing is just an embarrassment."

He very carefully tried not to think about the fact that, at the end of the day, Barnes was a menace, a danger to himself and others. He had to be realistic about this—people had died—and no matter how much he ached, there was only so much he could do.

Maybe this was another price he had to pay for his own dead, for all the people he'd killed—through his own arrogance, as the Merchant of Death, as the creator of Ultron.

It took a whole day for him to track down Steve, while he also gave Spidey his upgrade. When he finally did, it was in an airport in Leipzig. He wanted to hide behind his armor, but instead, he faced Steve without his helmet on. He gathered his scattered wits and pulled on his practiced mask, hiding behind his quips instead, very much aware of the Black Panther's shadowy figure mere feet away from him.

"Ross gave me thirtysix hours to bring you in. That was twentyfour hours ago. Can you help a brother out?"

Steve didn't falter. "You're after the wrong guy."

God, Tony desperately wished that was true, but clearly, he couldn't trust himself or his own heart. "Your judgment is askew," he said fiercely. "Your little war buddy killed innocent people yesterday."

"And there are five more supersoldiers just like him," Steve said. Wait, what? That was news to Tony. "I can't let the doctor find them first, Tony. I can't."

What? What was Steve talking about? What doctor?

"Steve, you know what's about to happen," Natasha intervened. "Do you really want to punch your way out of this one?"

As it turned out, that was exactly what happened. Tony desperately wanted to explain, but there was no time, and Barnes wasn't there, so he couldn't try anything on that front. He couldn't even trust his own team.

The conversation soon devolved into a battle. And Steve had been busy too. Wanda and Clint were with him—but Tony had already known that after the quite frankly fantastical fallout Wanda and Vision had had. There was one other dude which Tony couldn't identify—and he didn't like that. He hated not having all the variables in an equation. He even managed to catch Spidey by surprise, which was very unfortunate and quite shocking given that Spidey had a feel for these things.

He detected Maximoff and offered to go after her—which proved to be unfortunate, since that left him unable to pursue the next lead, Barnes himself. Fortunately, Steve stopped the ever enthusiastic T'Challa from going after Barnes, and Spidey went after him instead, which made Tony hopeful that Barnes might at least get out of this one alive.

At this point, that was the only thing he could hope for—because no matter what Steve thought, something like Vienna didn't just go away.

In hindsight, he should have focused on his own opponents rather than constantly doubt himself every fucking step of the way. If he had, maybe he'd have seen through Barton's gambit. Maybe he would have realized that Barton did not ever miss.

But he was distracted—in more than one way, and his heart was heavy and he was in pain—and when the cars came raining down on him, he couldn't dodge them.

"Multiple contusions detected," FRIDAY reported.

"Yeah," Tony muttered. "I detected that too."

And that was when things got really, really weird.

****

Bucky was with Wilson, fighting the strange spider guy that shot webs from his hands—webs, out of all things, what the hell?—when he felt it. Something was wrong.

Now, given all the shit that had happened lately, Bucky could openly say that was the understatement of the century. He'd felt off since waking up in the warehouse with Steve, but these days, he always felt off, so that wasn't necessarily anything new. He blamed the heavy weight that seemed to drag him down every step of the way on the burden of his guilt—it never changed, never let him sleep and was always, always there, ready to emerge from the shadows of his shattered mind.

So the wrongness? He shouldn't have given it much thought. But he did, and he turned, just in time to see the Iron Man armor disappear under an avalanche of cars.

Bucky moved before he even knew what he was doing. He didn't know why it was important—but he had to get there. The armor protected Stark, up to a point, but it had its weaknesses. He'd never been dispatched against Stark as the Winter Soldier, but for Fury's assassination, he'd received a file regarding all the Avengers—including Stark and his suits. Hydra had not had the exact specs, but the approximation sufficed to tell Bucky that Stark would've gotten hurt after this kind of impact.

He shouldn't have cared, but he did. And it was insane, because he was very much aware of the Black Panther hunting him, and Steve barely managing to keep him in check, and the spider guy grappling with Falcon—but he went anyway.

His mind cleared of doubt and regret and he focused on the knowledge that this was right, that this was what he needed to do. Even when he'd been convinced that they had to pursue the doctor and make sure the other soldiers weren't released, he hadn't felt this way.

He reached his destination in record time, only to be presented with a problem. He had no idea where to even begin if he wanted to pull Stark from under the cars.

He turned toward Wanda. "Get him out of there."

Wanda stared at him, red still flickering around her fingertips. Bucky didn't like her much. Steve had told him how they'd met and anyone with the ability to brainwash another person was on Bucky's threat list. He had no idea how Barton could even stand to be in her presence. Bucky had been made into a weapon too, so he couldn't exactly point fingers in that regard, but bringing down a whole garage of cars on top of a man who was supposed to be a teammate? Seriously?

Not that it mattered. Stark shot out of from the under the cars himself. The vehicles started to come down, but Stark grabbed Bucky and pulled him out of the way, keeping him from getting crushed.

They landed safely a few feet away. "So, we meet again," Stark said, retracting his face plate. "What are you even doing here?"

Bucky shrugged, feeling a little stupid now. "Wanted to help out. Looks like you didn't need it."

Stark's lips twisted into a small smile. It was nice to see, and it also drew Bucky's eyes to his mouth.

"Thanks," Stark said. "Much appreciated. There's something to that old man upbringing after all, and I always did appreciate a gentleman." He tossed a look of Barton over Bucky's shoulder. "Didn't appreciate that little tidbit, Barton. Dick move. See if I catch you next time you jump off a fucking building."

The comment reminded Bucky of what had dragged him here to begin with, and before Barton could reply, Bucky asked. "Are you okay?"

Stark looked at him again. "Been better. Still have a black eye from earlier, and I think there's some nerve damage in my arm from the sonic watch. My ribs aren't happy with me right now."

Right, the black eye was in plain sight, but Bucky didn't remember causing it. Fuck.

Stark didn't seem to resent him for it, though. "What about you?"

"I haven't been okay in a long time," Bucky admitted, the words spilling from his lips in a torrent. "I feel like Hydra is still scratching at my brain, and any moment now, it'll come out and I'll turn into that thing again. Arm hurts—haven't repaired it since I went on the run, and apparently it's not a good idea to block bullets with it on a regular basis."

"It's connected to your nervous system, right? How's your shoulder?"

"Better than it was, I think. Weight distribution not as off as before."

"Yeah, I saw. You've bulked up a bit since DC. That's good. But it still hurts, doesn't it?"

"It always hurts." Bucky shrugged. "I don't really mind it."

He'd never admitted it to Steve, of course. Steve had enough on his plate without worrying about that too, and for all that Steve was an excellent tactician, he wasn't a scientist or a medic, and he hadn't been able to tell. The serum Zola had given Bucky compensated for a lot of the damage, and at this point, the physical pain was Bucky's constant companion, and largely irrelevant compared to the rest of it.

"Well that's not going to work," Stark said. "I'm going to have a look at that arm of yours. Don't have all my tech here, but I might at least be able to make it hurt less."

The sound of a cleared throat interrupted their conversation. Bucky pivoted on his heel, only to realize the battle had stopped and everyone was now staring at him and Stark—no, at him and Tony.

"Uh, Tones?" War Machine—James Rhodes—began a little awkwardly. "Anything you'd like to share with the group?"

"Err... Looks like the cat's out of the bag. I might as well say it, not that it isn't obvious now. Barnes here is my soulmate."

In his heart, Bucky had already known that, but hearing it from Tony's mouth made Bucky's head spin with the implications. It was both exciting and horrible. He didn't deserve a soulmate, not after everything he'd done. And Tony of all people? Why Tony? The man would never forgive him after he found out the truth.

Barton glared at Tony, looking all around unimpressed. "Jesus, Stark. And you still came after him? Knowing that?"

Tony went rigid. "At least like this, there was a chance that he would live. That was more than he'd have gotten with Ross after... after what happened."

Tony was clearly still working under the premise that Bucky had been responsible for the attack in Vienna. Bucky couldn't blame him. He himself would have believed it if he hadn't known any better. But he hadn't had blackouts of significance until he'd been captured and the trigger words had been used, and geographically, he'd have never been able to get to Vienna without realizing it. Not to mention that he didn't have the resources to pull off something like that.

"It wasn't me," Bucky said. "I was nowhere near Vienna. I was framed."

Tony's clever eyes scanned his face, and what he saw there made some of the tension drain out of his stance. "And earlier?"

"The doctor they sent in... Hydra had some words—words they used to control me. The doctor knew them. Once he said them... I don't remember a thing. I'm sorry."

And he was, so very sorry. Because he'd committed a far worse crime—something against his mate, something that he and Steve didn't talk about, but that hung between them like an ominous cloud.

He'd killed Howard and Maria Stark, Tony's parents.

He still remembered it, crushing Maria's throat with his bare hands, her last desperate call for her husband, the way Howard had recognized him at the end, in a moment when Bucky himself hadn't known who he was. He and Howard had never been all that close during the war, but he'd liked the man up to a point. He'd been brilliant and funny and always provided the Commandos with information and useful equipment.

By the time Bucky had found him—as the Winter Soldier—Howard had already been old and tired, a far cry from the man Bucky had known. But that didn't change what he'd done or absolve him of his guilt.

"Look," he said. "If it helps, I'll come with you. I know the coordinates to the base in Siberia. Steve and the others can just go there, and I'll hand myself in."

"What?" Steve croaked out. "Bucky, no."

"I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve."

Steve's eyes glittered with unshed tears. Obviously, he knew exactly what was Bucky's train of thought. "That wasn't you. All those people. It wasn't you."

"I know," Bucky replied. "But I did it."

That was an inescapable truth, and maybe it was time to stop running and face it. At the very least, if he handed himself in, Steve might be able to get a break and he and Tony wouldn't have to continue this insane fight. Tony looked so tired, so wan, the strain obvious in his chocolate eyes and in the lines on his face. He deserved better—better than this, better than Bucky.

He also continued to be oblivious to the truth. The files on the Internet detailing the Winter Soldier's missions had been incomplete, so Tony still thought his parents' death was nothing more than an accident.

"Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Tony said. "There's no point..."

Before Tony could finish the phrase, King T'Challa interrupted the conversation. "Mr. Stark. Let us reassess the situation. Sergeant Barnes is your soulmate, yes? When did you learn this?"

"Back when we fought, at the UN headquarters." Tony eyed T'Challa with clear suspicion in his stance.

"Why did you not tell us?"

Tony arched a brow. "To be perfectly honest, I was pretty sure I'd be cut off if anyone found out about it, and I needed to keep my position to do at least some damage control. And it's not like you were going to be thrilled about the prospect of working with the soulmate of the man you thought killed your father."

"That may be so—but this changes things. It seems that I have been after the wrong man all along."

"Wait, you believe me?" Bucky stared at the young Wakandan king. "Just like that?"

"The Black Panther's role goes beyond that of the protector of Wakanda, Sergeant Barnes," T'Challa said. "The west has forgotten a great deal about soulmate traditions, but we have not. So yes, I believe you. You could not have lied to your soul mate—and the bond between the two of you is clear. Thus, I offer my assistance in this."

"Assistance with what, Your Highness?" Steve asked, setting aside his shield. "Can you keep Bucky safe until we chase down the doctor?"

In response, the Black Panther removed his mask—and suddenly, he wasn't just the warrior anymore. "I can do that, and much more."

****

It was easier said than done. Steve, Bucky and Sam were the only ones actively being pursued by Ross. T'Challa officially took them all in the custody of the Wakandan crown, then turned the whole mission into an investigation on the "doctor".

The rest of Cap's team was a different mattered entirely. Hawkeye was retired. Wanda was on the run, having left the compound when Tony had been struggling so badly to keep her safe. Tony didn't even know where Ant-Guy fit in all this.

None of them had signed the Accords, and if they went ahead to investigate without doing so, they'd just be giving Ross new ammo against other superhumans.

In the end, it was agreed upon that T'Challa would take Team Cap to the Wakandan embassy. The rest of them—sans Bucky, who was necessary for the mission since navigating the location would be difficult without him—would proceed to Siberia.

Wanda was clearly unhappy about this idea. "I did not leave the Avengers facility to go into another cage."

"See, Tony—this is exactly why the Accords are a bad idea," Steve pointed out.

"Actually, if you'd just agreed to sign them, we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with," Tony pointed out. "But we really don't have time to argue about this Cap. Seriously—this is the last chance. I'm not kidding when I said I'm trying to keep the team together. Ross is practically dancing with glee because of your stubbornness—and believe it or not, I don't control the desires of over 110 individual states."

"Tony's right, Steve," Bucky said. "We don't have time to argue. Let's just work together on this one."

Steve looked between Tony and Bucky, then let out a drawn out sigh. "Right. Okay."

With Captain America on board, the rest of them fell in line pretty quickly. Honestly, Tony suspected most of them didn't even know why they had been with Cap to begin with beyond the fact that "it was Cap". It gave him a headache... But it would have to be handled later.

Things seemed to take a turn for the better when, halfway to Siberia, Tony got a ping from FRIDAY that the body of the real doctor had been found in his hotel room. It was a genuine piece of evidence of Bucky's innocence—something they could definitely use.

Of course, it all became largely irrelevant when it became obvious that the culprit behind the whole scheme—Helmut Zemo—had no intention of hiding his involvement at all. Instead of an army of brainwashed super-soldiers, what Tony found in Siberia was a blast from the past.

He stared at the video in incomprehending silence and could do nothing but watch his soulmate brutally murder his parents.

By the time the whole gruesome scene was over, Zemo had already been subdued by the rest of the team. He was still gloating. Tony couldn't have cared less.

"Steve knew, didn't he?" he asked Bucky.

"I'm not sure," Bucky replied, "but... Probably, yes. He and Romanov did a lot of digging after DC."

Tony's breath caught, the feeling of betrayal tightening further in his gut. Romanov. Of course.

"Do you even remember them?" he couldn't help but snap.

Bucky nodded wordlessly. His expression held only loss, grief and resignation.

Something inside Tony cracked at the look in Bucky's eyes. Those were not the eyes of the Winter Soldier. They were the eyes of a man—of a victim.

At the end of the day, this wasn't about Steve. This was about him and Bucky—a man who had been turned into a weapon for the better part of the last century.

It hurt like hell to see his mother die like that. It hurt to know that he had blamed his father for her death, when Howard's last words had been for her.

But it was not Bucky's fault.

He still ended up sinking to his knees right there, in the middle of the Hydra bunker that had once been used to mold people into weapons. It was only a tomb now, the remnants of the Winter Soldier program eradicated by Zemo himself. And it was so cold—as cold as it must have been the night his parents had died, that fateful December when he'd become an orphan.

Bucky knelt next to him, hesitantly, like he was afraid not to spook him. "I'm sorry, Tony. I'm so sorry. For everything."

Bucky's metal arm whirred as he clenched and unclenched his fist. Tony looked at his soulmate's face, so very close to his now... and he wondered.

He wondered if the dread he'd experienced that day hadn't been related to what Bucky must have felt when they'd said the words to him—those words that turned him into a machine.

He tried to remember how many times he'd drowned that perpetual grief and fear in alcohol, women and the glamorous life of the billionaire playboy. He couldn't for the life of him recall.

He reached for Bucky's metal hand—the same one that had killed his mother—and squeezed it. "It wasn't your fault," he croaked out. "Come on. Let's go home."

Before they left the bunker, Tony took that blasted tape and crushed it in the fist of the Iron Man armor. As for the rest of what Hydra and Zemo had left behind... Well, it would make some pretty nice evidence and help clear his soulmate of the Winter Soldier's crimes.

Hydra had done enough damage. It was time to start anew.

****

The fallout of the events surrounding Lagos and the explosion at the UN would be later remembered as perhaps the strangest twist in modern political history.

It came out that Steve had never gotten treatment for his PTSD after the ice. Too blinded by the legend of Captain America, everyone had forgotten about the man Steve Rogers.

DC had only made the problem worse—as per Steve's own admission. In the aftermath, it was easy to realize that Steve should have stopped leading the Avengers long ago. Plainly put, he needed time off—because mentally and emotionally, he was a wreck.

This made Wanda's presence on the team all the more problematic—since Steve had taken responsibility for her, and as her CO, he was responsible for her actions in the field. Somehow, Steve had fallen through the cracks of the system, and through him, so had Wanda. The whole leadership structure of the Avengers was off—and it wasn't even their fault. In Steve's time, getting therapy hadn't exactly been a thing, and with the way everyone idolized Captain America... Honestly, it was a wonder Steve hadn't snapped until then.

After that, the records of Bucky's treatment at the hands of the Red Room and Hydra also came out, the tide shifted.

"It is very easy to make the mistake of believing that superpowered individuals are not people," Tony stated in his last speech in front of the UN. "Of course we are. As such, as any other person in the world, we have to take responsibility for our mistakes. But at the same time, superpowered individuals have to be protected since there are those who would take advantage of their abilities for their own gain. The Geneva Convention exists for a reason, ladies and gentlemen."

Of course, Tony had his fair share of detractors. It became common knowledge that he was Bucky's soulmate, and there were those that said that it was suitable that the Winter Soldier was the other half of the former Merchant of Death and the architect behind Ultron. And there were those who stated that Bucky was clearly a monster since he'd been able to attack his own soulmate, but in the end, Tony stood steadfast—and they won. Bucky was cleared of the Winter Soldier's crimes.

Things could have still gone poorly for them when it came to the Accords—but after Bucky's trial, General Ross himself played into their hands and attempted to retrieve the bodies of the dead soldiers in a sort of insane experiment to create another Hulk.

Suffice to say, that did not go over well—and Tony gave himself a mental pat on the back as he watched Ross being taken away his UN counterpart, Everett. Thank God he'd figured out a way to use Ross's obsession against him. The man was a menace, and Tony still had no idea how he'd managed to become Secretary after that debacle with Bruce in Harlem.

After that, it was very easy for Tony and T'Challa to take charge and make some sorely needed ammendments to the Accords. That had always been the plan, from the very beginning—but it was nice to be ahead of schedule.

As for the Avengers... They were temporarily shelved as a tactical team, until they all dealt with their problems. Most of them went back to live in the New Avengers Facility - except Wanda, who was undergoing training for her powers under the close supervision of Charles Xavier. Vision still visited her sometimes, and Tony had heard they were mending their relationship. It made him wonder if the two of them were soulmates too.

Either way, Tony didn't know if he'd ever return to work with the team as he had before—but right then and there, it didn't matter that much. He had other priorities.

His own soulmate.

Bucky came with Tony to the rebuilt mansion in Malibu. He still felt he couldn't trust his own mind—so much so that he'd tentatively even suggested going back to cryo. Everything inside Tony protested the thought. He suggested BARF instead, and Bucky leaped at the chance, even if it meant clawing through old wounds that had never really healed.

It was not easy. Every day was a challenge, and they both woke up screaming more than once. They still couldn't share a bed.

But they were getting better—and in the long run, all the effort was worth it.

One year after Tony found out his soulmate had killed his parents, he kissed Bucky for the very first time. Three months later, they had sex for the first time, and five months after that, they were married. Steve stood by Bucky's side, and for the first time since that day in Leipzig, Tony could look at Captain America without feeling any bitterness.

When he and Bucky exchanged rings, Tony held Bucky's metal hand—a new one, crafted by Tony himself—and smiled. They weren't perfect and probably never would be, but that was all right. He was still so very lucky for having found his soulmate.

**Author's Note:**

> I sorta feel like I wrapped everything up too quickly - but at the end of the day, the frustrating thing about CW is that most of the conflict could have been solved if they'd just worked together, and I didn't want to prolong it unnecessarily.


End file.
